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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#781

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

gmueckl wrote: post #440
db48x wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. An Amtrak train would just stop at the next convenient road crossing, if there were really something preventing them from stopping at the scheduled station. Most Amtrak stations don't even have staff, or any way to prevent people from coming and going, so this would most likely involve construction on the station platform itself. That’s fairly rare but the last time I took the Zephyr headed east there was…

I don't understand ome detail of this story: Amtrak platforms are about 110cm high. That's more than waist high for most people. So how do you let people get on and off at a grade intersection instead of at a platform?

See "An Excessive Explanation of North American Platform Heights": https://youtu.be/duASHyreTRg

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#782

Post by tonfa »

pembrook wrote: post #714
wiz21c wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the crux: we must invest in trains instead of planes.

No amount of money will overcome the fundamental issue: monopoly. Airlines are subject to market competition since any competitor around the globe can spot a poorly run route and buy their planes into those slots. If they can execute more efficiently than you, they can afford to lower prices (or increase the level of service) more than you, and thus put you out of business. Trains do not work this way. No amount of i…

France, Italy, Austria (and probably others) don't have monopoly on long distance train. For instance, you can take a DB/Renfe/Trenitalia train on french high speed line, or in Austria take a Westbahn train instead of ÖBB.

That said personally I much prefer the mostly fixed pricing (and no reservation required) of swiss network than the dynamic one of other countries.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#783

Post by bluebarbet »

dmurray wrote: post #216
Svip wrote: post #83

> The train starts moving. The driver announces there are “issues around Bonn.” He does not specify what kind. No one asks. We have learned not to ask. This is one of those issues I keep mulling about; it seems train operators (and airliners for that matter) tend to avoid being technically specific about operation problems, and just say "problems" and - if they are kind - where the problem is. And I cannot decide whe…

Airlines are vague about this (at least in Europe) because different types of problems mean different obligations to compensate passengers. After the incident they will determine what's the least expensive lie they can plausibly give (perhaps the weather will change fast enough that you can blame the weather, perhaps you can't lie about an equipment failure when everyone in the airport sees you swap out the airplane)…

Yet the very fact that airlines routinely do put people up in hotels when flights get cancelled is an example of the exorbitant privilege of air travel (another being tax-free kerosene).

Nobody expects this to happen with train travel. Perhaps they should.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#784

Post by alexfoo »

Etheryte wrote: post #759
alexfoo wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many UK long distance trains still take power from a third rail for some of all of their journey. Overhead electrification is a long term goal for the non-Metro UK rail network but it is a long way off. The other method is an electric train with a diesel generator car.

Interesting, TIL. Trains don't do that where I'm from for obvious safety reasons, but I understand infrastructure everywhere comes with different baggage.

Anywhere with third rail (which is predominantly London and the South-East of England) tends to be fenced off along the sides of the tracks or other things in place to strongly discourage you from walking onto the tracks.

Given that a considerable amount of the UK rail routes date from the late 1800s there are a lot of places where tracks cross roads and therefore mix with other forms of transport (including pedestrians). It's surprising just how little there is in between a pedestrian and a live rail in these situations, here's an example 5 miles or so away from central London: https://maps.app.goo.gl/nPcJM1YxBexaDDKY6

One of those live third rails start less than 5 yards away from where pedestrians regularly walk, with just some angled planks of wood to stop you walking towards them.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#785

Post by _Microft »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #307
BloondAndDoom wrote: post #131

I feel like we lost humanity somewhere in modern world. I grew up in 3rd world country and if this were to happen, train would literally stop somewhere, anywhere. (With the assumption it’s safe from crewing into another train). But the idea that you go 55 minutes just because of policy; and skip 15 stations is crazy to me. Again with the assumptions that it can safely stop somewhere for 5m and I’m pretty sure the ans…

You're touching on points that Ayn Rand touched on in Atlas Shrugged , which as it happens uses the dynamics of the running of a railway as a metaphor for organisational incompetence and which opens on a scene of railway workers refusing to take initiative and following policy blindly. Where she started to go a little weird is she thought anyone who had an idea had the right to just go do that, and society can go han…

Tracks 3, 4 and 7 at the station in question are not adjacent to a platform. It sort of makes sense to route a train over these if there is no stop planned there (intentional or not).

Here's the map of the station:

https://www.bahnhof.de/troisdorf/karte

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#786

Post by yeputons »

adrianN wrote: post #657
tazjin wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately nowadays traveling with DB has become a game of Russian roulette. Ironically, Russian trains (even over distances of thousands of kilometres) are usually almost perfectly on time. Germany's DB seems to fill the same niche as other companies there, like Telekom: semi-private companies living off old state-built infrastructure that they're now incapable of (or unwilling to?) maintain.

Being on time over thousands of kilometers is a lot easier than being on time over dozens of kilometers. Especially if you share the same tracks with cargo trains, regional trains, and high speed trains and stop at every other village because that was the condition the nimbys required for allowing you to build the track in the first place.

Local trains in Moscow and Saint Petersburg ("elektrichka" with all local stops) may get delayed by a few minutes sometimes, true. But e.g. several trains being delayed by ten minutes because of an ice rain is newsworthy. At least that was the case on several directions I knew about.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#787

Post by riffraff »

wolframhempel wrote: post #516
tdullien wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The privatization of the train system in Germany was a particularly insane disaster that is only now, 30 years later, being undone/repaired. If you look at an org chart of the DB these days, the most fascinating part is that DB consists of almost 600 separate corporate entities that are all supposed to invoice each other. Speaking with insiders, it appears that when the privatization happened, the new corporate struc…

It was a privatization in name only. The German state held 100% of its shares since the beginning. As such, it might have no longer been subject to the state specific demands of hiring etc. - but instead found itself in an uneasy tension as the only supplier of services to an entity that was something between a customer and a shareholder. Which brings up an interesting question: How do you structure something with a…

keep the rails as a state-owned monopoly, let different train operators run on it. Basically we have that for airplanes, and it works well enough.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#788

Post by yeputons »

harddrivereque wrote: post #25

Deutsche Bahn has gone from not perfect to straight up disastrous and antisocial in the past years. They use scamming approaches more misleading than airline's and in cases straight up lie. It's rightfully headed for insolvency despite billions of wasteful and wrongful state funding. I hope that company goes under as soon as possible. Any other solution to the railway system management is better than DB. DB is not go…

> They use scamming approaches more misleading than airline's and in cases straight up lie.

Would you mind sharing some examples? My only complaints with DB are cancellations and delays. Well, the ticketing might be a bit confusing the first time you realize "ticket" and "seat reservation" are two completely independent entities. Similarly, rules for which train you're allowed to take might be a bit confusing. But I wouldn't call it scamming.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#789

Post by mrks_hy »

pjmlp wrote: post #730
hopelite wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I speak fluently 6 languages, and a few dialects of them, how many do you speak?

Does it matter to the OP's point how well-spoken you are? Biting down some non-constructive snark here.

Yes, English is a good lowest common language, and it is mostly that announcements are in English. But learning enough of the native language that you are at least puzzled enough to ask another passenger seems like a not very high and reasonable bar for travel-speak to pick up.

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